Even if you dislike Ayn Rand’s moral philosophy of objectivism, and her subsequent exaltation of free market capitalism, you should appreciate this movie.

Atlas Shrugged is about everything that Hollywood is currently against and as a result needed to be privately funded for $10 million. A fraction of the cost of what most A-list actors charge.

There were some minor alterations to Ayn Rand’s massive 1000+ page tome. The time-frame has been set in the not-too-distant future, 2016, and current events and trends were used to set the stage for the dystopian future. But while the overall story may have been given a contemporary polish, much of the core storyline has remained in tact. As someone who hasn’t read the book yet, the first installment of three managed to accomplish the director’s goal of enticing newcomers to pickup the book and read it.

Those who don’t ascribe to objectivism (or its close cousin, utilitarianism) will be put off by the mechanistic view of man portrayed in the movie. This is shown most explicitly in the first of two sex scenes in the movie.

This, in turn, means that bleeding heart liberals, who Rand explicitly loathed, will find the content of Atlas Shrugged to be particularly unpalatable.

Overall, however, I highly recommend this movie because it does do a good job of portraying both objectivism as well as free market capitalism.